Thai Times: Sapa

another country...another baby handed to me

indigo dye for indigo clothes

We arrived in Sapa around 9 AM after a long, delayed, and terrifying night bus to the Northern Vietnamese region (about 100 km away from China!). We were greeted by a woman dressed in traditional clothing with my name on a sheet of paper along with the cool, fresh air of Sapa. After a quick breakfast, Kate and I began our trek with the same woman who picked us up at the bus. She was our guide for the entire 3 days we spent in Sapa. Her name is Li and she is of the Lao Chai tribe, which came from China and has been in Vietnam for 300 years. Through our 2 hour trek up and down layered fields of corn, rice, cabbage, and a waterfall, Li told us of her life in her village. Her mother (who we later met and I bought traditional clothing from) gave birth to her when she was 51. Li lives with her husband (who we later found out that is divorcing. that night. And is very uncommon among the hill tribe people) and 3 children. When she married, she moved to her husband’s village, which is 7 km away from Sapa town, which we stayed in one night (and that she walks to and from every day!). She disclosed to us that she does not like how quickly the town and tourism has boomed, especially since it has brought noisy motorbikes and cars in the past 7 years. I can understand her concern, and felt a bit uncomfortable being one of many tourists to enter a Hmong family’s home, which was also selling traditional clothing. Though my intentions were to learn about how different people live, I did feel a bit like I was at a zoo, which was not my intention at all.

in a traditional tunic and belt. I ended up
buying the tunic.

After our hike, Li took us to her mother’s “shop,” which was a table set up in a room full of women from different tribes selling and making their traditional clothing. I tried on a tunic with gorgeous embroidery on the sleeves. Li constantly encouragd us that these were the real things and not made in China by machines (we believed her since we saw the women’s green and blue-stained hands from the various dyes, and them stitching and sewing in front of our eyes. I ended up buying one piece of Li’s mother’s traditional clothing, which is a tunic with embroidery on the sleeves. I cannot wait until I get home in October to rock it with some leggings and boots!) After our shopping excursion of traditional clothing and North Fake (Sapa has a great selection of sturdy, fake North Face attire), we crashed in our hotel room to recover from our night bus and get ready for our 5 hour trek the next day.

Me and Li's mother and a beautiful scarf she made

We met Li outside of our hotel and began our trek with 4 other tourists and a parade of women and children in traditional clothing who lived in the same village as Li. We were naïve enough to think that the children helping us up steep inclines and holding our hands were entirely out of the kindness of their hearts…until we arrived at their village for lunch and realized that we were expected to buy a purse or bracelet. But before this happened, we really enjoyed our trek through the misty mountains of Sapa, almost all of which have layered rice fields. All the people that live in these villages have been moved around so much from country to country (remember: Li’s tribe started in China!) until they finally found themselves in the hilly, rocky landscape of Sapa, which without their hard work and expert planning would be completely unfarmable.

dog for sale at the market

me, Li, and Kate and the waterfall

I went to Sapa naïve enough to think that the people who lived in these villages wanted to preserve their way of life and were happy staying with the traditions they had known for hundreds of years, but with the construction of power lines and dams through their villages that offer electricity to the touristy city of Sapa, and electricity to only the very few of the people in the hill tribe villages that can afford it, I realized that modernization is happening around these villages and it’s not even an option for most of them. I felt guilty walking through these villages with my new clothes that I have acquired throughout my travels while the people around me got one new outfit each year which they made themselves. Everyone around us was constantly trying to sell us something, and even after you had bought something from one person, the next would respond, “but you didn’t buy anything from ME. I need to sell things too.” I’m glad that I was exposed to this part of the world and saw what tourism can do to a culture and to see first-hand that not everyone in this world is equal.

To and Shaung. The mark on To's head is from a burning coin
pressed against her head to get rid of a headache. If you're interested
in hill tribe peoples and their beliefs, I would highly recommend
the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which
is about the clash between American medicine and traditional medicinal
beliefs.

Our trek for the day ended at our homestay. Unfortunately, our homestay family did not speak English and we had minimal contact with them. They see so many people coming through each day (they have a two-story house. The second floor is lined with mattresses for guests to sleep in, while the bottom floor has beds for the family members), that I would not expect them to want to develop a deep relationship with us. Even though our host family was sub-par, our guide Li made up for everything.

The next day we finished our trekking in Sapa in the drizzly rain, hiking through steep, muddy trails. After going down an extremely steep spot and stopping for lunch, we witnessed a group of men and boys coming down the same trail in sandals and carrying large farm equipment. It was just another example of how hard these people have to work to just get by. None of them are able to farm enough to sell, it’s all only enough to sustain their village.

Though seeing the way people live in Sapa is hard, it is an unbelievably beautiful place. I still have mixed feelings about whether or not people should go, as tourism is certainly tainting the traditional culture, but it is also important to experience other cultures and get out of your comfort zone while traveling. I'm very glad that I ended up doing this trek, especially since I cultivated a really great relationship with our guide Li. She sang me a traditional song, told me of her divorce with her husband, which is very rare and is done through the village, not the Vietnamese government, and her negative feelings towards tourism in the area. Though at times I did feel as if I were taking advantage of the suddenly tourist-populated area, I was able to learn and understand another culture first-hand, which was my initial intention.